Allegations that all three of Garfield’s county commissioners went to an out-of-state meeting[1] about oil shale without giving public notice of their gathering is disheartening.

A citizen’s group has alleged that commissioners violated Colorado’s open meetings law when they met March 27 in Utah with, among others, attorneys and lobbyists for oil shale interests.

The oil shale issue is a volatile one, and it would be in everyone’s best interest for elected public officials to not only honor the law, but when there’s a question about whether a meeting ought to be public they ought to err on the side of disclosure.